In general, a panel having an elegant design is attached to an outside of the home appliance, such as the refrigerator, the air conditioner or the washing machine. Recently, as demands on a design which has metal feeling or can produce different colors increase sharply, by forming a pattern on a surface of a stainless steel panel by photolithography, metal feeling and different colors unique to the stainless steel are produced.
FIGS. 1(a)˜1(d) illustrate a prior art process for manufacturing a decorative panel including the steps of forming a pattern on a stainless steel panel and attaching the stainless steel panel to a glass plate.
Referring to FIG. 1(a), photoresist is applied to an outside of a stainless steel panel, and a UV beam is projected to the stainless steel panel through a glass plate having a mask with pattern attached thereto. According to this, the pattern of the mask is transcribed to the photoresist on the surface of the panel, temporarily. Then, referring to FIG. 1(b), an etching solution is applied to etch the stainless steel panel, to form the pattern of the design on the surface of the stainless steel panel. Then, referring to FIG. 1(c), a PSA (Pressure Sensitive Adhesive) is coated to one side of the glass plate, and a sheet of release paper is attached thereto and passed through rollers, for lamination of the adhesive. Finally, referring to FIG. 1(d), the sheet of release paper is peeled off the glass plate, the stainless steel panel is aligned with the glass plate such that the surface of the stainless steel panel having the pattern formed thereon is in contact with the surface of the glass plate having the adhesive coated thereto, and the stainless steel panel and the glass plate aligned thus are passed through rollers to laminate, to complete a decorative panel of the stainless steel panel and the glass plate attached to the stainless steel panel.
However, a decorative panel according to the prior art is expensive more than a plastic film due to the stainless steel panel. And the photolithography costs high. Moreover, in manufacturing the decorative panel, an individual process is required for each product due to the stainless steel plate, which results in poor productivity.